Trip the Light Fantastic
by xRae Asakurax
Summary: Bruce will always catch Wally, no matter what. BatFlash, oneshot, a 'guess the song' fic!


**Rae:** Okay, so, the idea with this fic is to guess the song to which this fic is referring. If you've read it on my Deviantart and know the answer, please don't tell everyone else! My hints are to pay attention to the order in which things happen and note the title of the fic.

Anyway, I may or may not be on a bit of a fic-kick tonight, what with updating New Recruit and all, and I keep thinking I should post this here and then never getting around to it. Bad Rae!

Enough babbling, on with the the show!

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><p>Despite the fact that Bruce had a butler, a part-time job as the ower of Wayne Industries and a near full-time job as Batman, he still liked to do things himself. He didn't normally take to routines, they made him too predictable and too easy a target, but he'd grown fond of this one and since Wally had kind of bustled into his life so thoroughly he found a lot of the little things were appealing and nice to do when he wasn't around, reminding him of the man who showed him in less than a month that being all uptight and scary wasn't the best way to be all the time.<p>

The first thing in the morning if Wally wasn't around was the paper. Sloping down the driveway to pick it up in just a pair of sweatpants and a yawn that was near jaw-cracking was a good way to help him wake up a little more, the cool morning air not yet warmed by the sun giving his body a not unpleasant shock to the system. He took it back up to the house, unfolding it even before he reached the front door to have a scan of the front articles and see if there was anything he wasn't already aware of. Newspapers sometimes managed to catch him out of the loop on something, though it wasn't very often, and he usually rather enjoyed the often mis-guided or mis-informed articles on things he already was aware; they made for entertaining reading if nothing else.

He stepped inside, scanning through the next page and then pausing abruptly in the hallway when his gaze came to rest on an article about the Scarlet Speedster, simultaneously saving five people from a near burnt-out community center in Midtown still blazing hot with fire and chasing down and catching the thugs who started it in the first place. There was a grainy picture of the speedster standing triumphantly with his trademark megawatt grin and hands on slim hips behind said conked-out thugs. He shook his head slightly; honestly, Wally just couldn't come to the door and ring the doorbell to announce himself like normal people.

Saying that though, he did have a key. So Bruce supposed that ringing the doorbell was a little moot at that point. Still, there were other less stressful ways to catch his attention.

He glanced up at the mirror in the hallway as he passed it, eyeing himself briefly. He was never the picture-perfect playboy billionaire in the mornings that all those glossy mags and rags of newspapers fawned over and tried to scandalize. He was just Bruce Wayne, human being still waking up from a hard night's work. And he enjoyed it. He smiled slightly, silently thanking Wally once again in his head for showing him that being "just Bruce" wasn't a bad thing. A 'clink' made him look down briefly at a set of keys in a dish under the mirror which he'd accidentally brushed, belonging to a Lamborghini Sesto Elemento that a certain red-head absolutely adored beyond belief when he found it in Bruce's collection. To say 'thank you' to the speedster without actually saying anything, he'd slipped a Flash symbol onto the keychain.

Wally had spent the half hour after he found it zipping around the house at top speed squealing his delight and then the next 4 hours driving the Lamborghini all around Gotham.

Bruce shook his head of the memory fondly, heading to the kitchen for some coffee and a more thorough review of the newspaper. He pulled the percolator from one of the cupboards and some of the finest Columbian ground coffee from another. Just because he was more relaxed in his routine didn't mean he would skimp on the really important things. Like a good, proper mug of coffee and cream.

The spoon he picked out the cutlery drawer to stir in his cream and tiniest bit of sugar was one that Wally had inexplicably come back with one day. It had appeared in the drawer overnight, and when questioned Wally admitted it was him that put it there but refused to say why or where he'd got it. It was a stainless steel, like the rest of the cutlery used for every day, but this spoon had an overlapping lightning bolt and bat symbol etched into the top of the handle. Professionally done and it was extremely pretty, and Bruce was rather happy with the gift. That seemed to satisfy Wally no end, since he ended up with a grin that just screamed to the world he was the kitty-cat who totally got both his canary and his cream and then happily went on to a completely different subject.

His ability to talk was second-to-none, Bruce already knew that before Wally started truly becoming his friend. What surprised him and, in retrospect, really shouldn't have done, was his ability to switch topics like the Gotham Gab changed its mind on whether to scandalize or idolize Bruce Wayne. He would swtich so fast sometimes Bruce's brain couldn't keep up with him two topics back. One second he'd commenting on the cufflinks that Bruce had chosen to wear that day, anything and everything about them asking a million questions and never letting Bruce get even a syllable in edgeways before he'd swapped tracks and was now on the train to Yak-yaksville totally enamored with the new flat screen TV adorning the wall in his living room. How much did it cost, where did you get it, what do you watch, come to think of it when the hell do you watch it, unless you use it as one of your surveillance monitors ohmygodyoudodon'tyou-

Then another abrupt about-face onto a completely new subject.

Of course, it was rare Wally was that hyped up, but it was always amusing and entertaining, if a little frustrating, when he was.

Once Bruce finished his coffee and sifting through the paper articles, once more most of them lacking in evidence and just simply conjecture, he put his coffee mug on the side to be re-used later and slipped out the front door again. This time it was to the mailbox, which was right outside the front door as opposed to the paper which was always tossed at the bottom end of his driveway. He had originally picked up his mail with the paper, but the kinds of things he received were generally best left until after he'd had his morning coffee.

He snorted lightly at that, picking up the few letters for him that day out of the box and scarpering back inside with them. If only his villains knew the secret to taking down Batman was to deprive him of his morning caffeine fix.

Either that, or it would set Batman off on a rampage. He wasn't sure which.

He cracked a smile when he sifted through the mail to find a short, hand-written note in a messy scrawl, hurried and childish but sincere. It wasn't posted, just slid into the box with the rest of his mail. It read:

_You know, I tried for so long to be your friend, find out who you are. I'm glad I finally know. You were worth the fight, every last bit._

There was something to be said for sentimentals, Bruce mused. He could certainly always count on Wally to make his day that little bit more cheerful, make it feel like he was right there next to Bruce, solid, warm, breathing, comforting, instead of 600 miles away in Central.

Even if he did seem to make nightly visits to Gotham.

It wasn't just in the mailbox that Bruce found Wally's little notes. There was one hidden in the top drawer of his desk when he opened it to find his accounts book and chequebook that simply had an enormous smiley face on it, and then another one actually written on the next new cheque that made him snort quietly to himself for not only the creative ways Wally was leaving him these notes but also the fact that they were just so... sappy.

And Bruce rather enjoyed them. He tore the cheque out carefully, keeping it to one side with his phone and all the daft messages he had saved on it that he felt he could use in ribbing Wally next time they saw each other properly. He started writing out the next cheque for a new order of parts to Wayne Industries' science faculty, since a good part of it was destroyed a while ago in a fight between Batman and Bane. They were still repairing it now, as evidenced by the rather hefty sum he was now paying out for more goods. He sighed as he stared at the number of zeroes on the cheque he'd just written, then glanced at the one Wally had done.

_Pay: Bruce Wayne_

_The sum of: Everything I am, everything I have._

_Signed Wallace R West_

He didn't feel so bad after reading it. A small smile tugged at his lips, and he placed the cheque pride of place leaned up against one of his monitors. Just as he was about to start on the day's workload his cell phone went off with a little message jingle. At least it wasn't his ring tone; Wally had somehow managed to record him singing when Circe had made Batman go on stage. Then the sneaky red-head had set it to his ringtone somehow without Bruce realizing, and the first time it had gone off in the middle of a Board meeting at Wayne Tower the billionaire had temporarily been stunned into silence.

He picked up the phone, prepared for whatever poorly-written, barely-hidden snide little text someone on the Board would have typed up about some menial job or task that hadn't been seen to yet that they wanted doing _this instant_. Frankly, Bruce didn't really care what they wanted; he had a company to run.

However it turned out to be a text from the Scarlet Speedster himself, simply a chirpy little note that read 'good morning handsome!'. Bruce snorted, shooting a quick response of 'good morning to you too. You're far too chipper in the mornings.' before pulling the easy chair closer to his desk and tugging the rest of his paperwork towards him.

Bruce was curled up on the sofa in the living room, a book on aeronautics balanced on his knee and a mug of coffee kept steady in his other hand. He was absorbed in his reading until he heard a noise from the next room, something falling over, followed by a faint whispering sound. Immediately he was on red alert, placing both the book and coffee down on the table nearby and readying himself for a fight as he silently made his way to the next room. He peered in briefly, but couldn't see anyone. What he did see however was that a small dark blue vase was now rolling around rather languidly on the floor whereas he was positive it had been on the little table next to the window. Which was open, to his slight surprise, but not enough that anyone could get in or out.

The caped crusader concluded relatively quickly that Alfred had more than likely been the one to open the window, air the room out a bit, which had knocked over the vase. He picked the vase up and put it back, shutting the window a bit more and making sure the curtains were pulled back as far as they would go. He ran his hand down them slowly and they moved just a little, making it seem like maybe there was someone playing right behind them.

Wally had done that once.

It was the third or fourth time he'd been around Bruce's mansion. Bruce had left him alone for just a moment to go fetch something from his office to show the speedster, and when he came back Wally had vanished.

Well, sort of.

He was still in the room, and Bruce found him almost straight away hiding behind the very curtains he now held in his hands. At the raised eyebrow Bruce sent him the red-head gave him a megawatt grin and said he wanted to see if that trick actually worked or not. Now he knew it didn't. He hopped out from behind the curtain and bounced over to the sofa, practically throwing himself onto it and looking at Bruce expectantly, like he hadn't just basically turned himself into a 6-year-old again.

Bruce smiled at the memory, letting go of the curtain. He found Wally to be so much more complex than he had originally thought. The man was like a child trapped in the body of a 25-year-old; boundless energy, insatiable curiosity, a special type of naïveté, wide green eyes, talking a million miles a second driving everyone up the wall and back down again.

And yet, when it came down to it Wally knew exactly how to be a professional, grown up, take charge kind of man. After all, you don't get to be a forensic scientist by being a big kid. In battle he was focused, distracting only for the enemy. He had timing, smarts and views on a situation the rest of the Leaguers probably wouldn't have seen otherwise.

Once Bruce found this out, he'd become inordinately curious about Wally, puzzling him out little by little, even as the young man surprised him again and again. He discovered the challenge of understanding the speedster wasn't going to be easy by any stretch of the imagination, and Bruce loved a good challenge. It became almost a game between them once the speedster had worked out what Batman was trying to do, and Wally knew just how to keep the older man on his toes, only reveal little things when he wanted them revealed.

He was very good at it.

Perhaps it should have clicked for Bruce; Wally was crafty, sly and fast, a combination that when pulled together with his talent for distractions and inane babble created a very efficient person at hiding what they wanted kept secret. The billionaire hadn't given up on his quest to understand the younger man fully, but he was starting to find other ways around it.

The first time Wally had visited as a civillian he'd been awed by the size of the mansion in which Bruce Wayne currently resided and his predecessors had dwelled. He'd zipped from room to room asking questions a million miles a second, commenting that his entire flat back in Central could fit into Bruce's damn kitchen and how much food did Alfred keep in the pantry? The billionaire, amid quite a bit of laughing at some of the more outrageous quick-fire queries, tried to answer as many as he could keep up with until Wally finally slowed down to normal speed after having seen both the mansion _and_ the BatCave around 30 times each and settled down to actually have a coherent conversation.

From then on Wally visited as many times as he could. Bruce suspected half of it was because the billionaire could actually afford to feed the red-head, and it would actually be Ragnarok, the Apocalypse, Armageddon, whatever you wanted to call the end of the world before any speedster said no to food. Wally became a staple part of Bruce's life very quickly, and he couldn't imagine himself now without the little things that meant the younger man was here, had been here and would be here for the long foreseeable future, both in his home life and his life as Batman.

Little things that made life actually have some semblance of fun for Bruce. Wally loved turning things into a game, and the dark-haired man usually allowed himself to get caught up in the spur-of-the-moment charades.

Like when they both came back to the BatCave together, having stopped a rather large heist by both Riddler and Captain Cold and found some damning evidence that pointed to something much larger. Wally had hung onto for safe-keeping as they drove back together, discussing what on earth Edward and Leonard were doing hanging around each other in the first place, let alone why they'd heist together. As far as the two heroes were concerned, Nigma would usually consider Cold to be too much of an idiot.

But when they got back to the BatCave Flash zipped out of the car and straight towards the computer, only to screech to a halt and look down at his hand, which was clutched tightly around the flashdrive containing what Bruce needed to decrypt. He spun to face the older man, drawing his hood down and letting his bright red hair fall free, wide sly grin slowly spreading across his features. Bruce recognized the mischievous smirk for what it was almost straight away, and sighed.

"Wally-"

"Nope, too slow Bats!" Wally zoomed around Batman several times as the pointy-eared cowl lowered. "Gotta catch me if you want this!" He sped out of the room and up the stairs to the manor before the detective could finish blinking, let alone say anything. Bruce stood with one raised eyebrow after him, wondering how poor Alfred would take to the hurricane he undoubtedly just experienced. With his usual calm and unflusterable demeanor most likely; the man was an utter saint.

Bruce snatched up a couple of electronics before he made his way up to the manor at a much more sedate pace, unhooking most of his armor along the way. He slipped what he could off at the top of the stairs, setting it down next to the BatCave entrance just as Alfred came in with a tray of coffee and some carrot cake.

"Master Wallace, I presume," he greeted, setting the tray down on one of the nearby tables.

"The one and only."

"Oh, good. I was afraid I'd left a window open somewhere and let in a draft." The butler straightened. "Productive evening, sir?"

"It will be when I find certain speedsters. He's run off with my evidence." There was a serious lack of annoyance in the tone, much more one of fond exasperation, something Bruce's oldest friend didn't miss.

"Ah." Alfred let the smallest flicker of a smile onto his face. "Then if I may, sir, he did disappear upstairs."

"Hey! No fair, butlers are off limits." Wally appeared briefly in the doorway, blowing a raspberry at the both of them. "Old-fashioned way, Bruce! No fun otherwise." Then he was gone again, the wake of his mad dash leaving the curtains in the room flapping madly and any papers the fly around the room before settling gently on the floor. Bruce rolled his eyes and started for the door.

"Leave the coffee there, Alfred, thank you. I suspect we'll be back for it later. In the meantime, I have a thief to deal with."

"Indeed sir."

Bruce set off in search of the elusive red-head. He was fairly easy to track, the only problem was Wally seemed to have an inate sense of when the other man was getting near, and he would high-tail it out of his hiding spot before Bruce could ever reach it. Eventually Bruce started putting his Batman skills to good use when the speedster had evaded him enough times, and nearly cornered him once or twice. Around and around the house they went, upstairs, downstairs, back in the BatCave, kitchen, garden, poolside floatie pile and so on. He managed to find some utterly ridiculous places to hide.

When Bruce did finally manage to catch Wally, he was in the last place anyone would have thought to look.

The billionaire probably would have left the office he found the speedster in if he hadn't heard the muffled snort of laughter come from somewhere nearby. He searched around the room until he pulled the curtains back from the window, and found Wally curled up behind them, hand over mouth trying not to break down into giggles. Bruce put a hand on one hip, cocking it out to the side and raised an eyebrow.

"Really, Wally?"

The speedster just grinned in response. "Took you a while to find me. I'm disappointed."

Bruce held out a hand for Wally, who took it and let himself be helped up. He was tugged quite forcefully into the dark-haired man's body once he was upright and held there, two Prussian blue eyes boring into bright green. The younger man blinked, then relaxed and smirked.

"Caught you," Bruce growled lowly, his other hand clamping itself solidly around a slim waist.

"And so you did." Wally waved the flashdrive at him with two fingers, smirk widening. "Now that you've caught your prize, what are you going to do with it?"

"I have a few ideas." The billionaire leaned down and kissed Wally hard, lips and grip unyielding. The speedster let out a soft moan, his own arms rising to hook around Bruce's neck and tug him a little closer, opening his mouth under the older man's complacently when entrance was demanded. They stayed like that for several minutes, a slight playfight for dominance pushing heat back and forth between them making the younger start vibrating slightly, involuntarily, in Bruce's arms.

"You can't hide from me, Wally," he murmured when they parted reluctantly. "I'll always find you."

"No matter where I go, huh?" The red-head leaned up and placed another gentle kiss to Bruce's lips. "I think I can live with that."

"Good." Bruce reached up behind his head and slipped the flashdrive from the speedster's fingers. "Now, there's coffee waiting for us and some evidence to comb through."

"You sure know a way to a guy's heart, Bruce," Wally said, conceding the victory and hooking an arm through the billionaire's. The elder chuckled, adjusting his arm slightly so the red-head was tucked in a little closer.

"No, just to yours."

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><p><strong>Rae:<strong> Your Queen has written. Enjoy the Bruce/Wally-ness! x


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